Five Amity University law students face FIR after viral video shows brutal assault on classmate
LUCKNOW: Five law students of Amity University’s Lucknow campus were allegedly booked after an FIR was lodged against them for brutally assaulting and abusing one of their classmates inside a vehicle in the campus parking area. The video of the incident recently went viral on social media.
Confirming the incident, senior police officer Dinesh Chandra Mishra said an investigation had been launched, and five students were named in an FIR registered on the basis of a complaint by the victim's father, Mukesh Kesarwani.
The students named in the FIR include Ayush Yadav, Jahnvi Mishra, Milay Banerjee, Vivek Singh and Aryaman Shukla.
The video, which went viral on social media, showed the student, identified as Shikhar Mukesh Kesarwani, being slapped as many as 25–30 times over 90 seconds by some of his classmates, including a girl. The incident is believed to have taken place last month.
In the video, two people, including a woman, are seen raining blows on the student, while a male student is heard abusing and threatening him. As Shikhar tries to defend himself, the attackers ask him to put his hand down.
"Move your hand away from your face, or you will be beaten even more," the accused is heard saying in the video.
With no statement issued by the campus authorities over the incident, the reason behind the assault could not be immediately ascertained.
Meanwhile, speaking to the media, Shikhar's father claimed that the incident had left his son traumatised and that he had stopped attending college.
As per the details of the incident shared by the victim’s father, Shikhar was on his way to college on August 26 when he was picked up by a friend, Soumya Singh Yadav, in her vehicle at Hanneman Crossing. As they reached the university's parking area, the other accused students arrived at the spot.
They told Shikhar that they needed to talk to him about something. They entered Soumya's vehicle and, for the next “45 minutes, threatened and verbally abused” the victim, said Mukesh Kesarwani.
He further said that the accused also broke his son's phone and even threatened to assault him if he came to the campus.
"On August 11, my son underwent a ligament surgery. He was walking with the help of a stick. During the assault, Jahnvi Mishra and Ayush Yadav slapped my son at least 50 to 60 times and also abused me and my parents. They also threatened to kill us," said Kesarwani.
"During all this time, Vivek Singh and Milay Banerjee recorded the assault and circulated the video on the campus. They also broke my son's phone. When I visited the college, they threatened me and told me never to come again. They threatened to assault me in a similar way," he added.
The complainant sought strict action against the accused.
While two students were seen in the video assaulting the victim and talking about “character he had talked about” and asking him repeatedly to put his hands down, another occupant in the car, whose face was not visible and was presumably recording the video, was heard saying that Shikhar had apologised and asked Ayush to stop the assault.
Ayush, however, appeared indifferent and continued to assault the law student. He told his friend Aryaman to hold Shikhar's left hand and then slapped the victim a couple more times. He did not stop until at least two of his friends told him that he had assaulted the student enough.